A handfull of students and staff had a winning entry in this year's haiku contest sponsored by Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis-Ibaraki Sister City Association.

Some 8 MPS middle school students on May 4 participated with a few of Minneapolis’ finest chefs as part of the inaugural Minneapolis Junior Iron Chef Competition, sponsored by Culinary and Nutrition Services and the True Food Chef Council. Students Gabe Chang-Deutsch, Tatianna Bady, Kay Carvajal Moran, Yuepheng Chang, Castor Puleston, Nou Thao, Tiffani Ford and Janaan Ahmed worked in teams with chefs to prepare dishes for a panel of judges to taste. Participating chefs included Marshall Paulsen (Birchwood Cafe), Ann Kim (Pizzeria Lola), TJ Rawitzer (Kim Bartmann’s restaurants) and Erica Strait (Foxy Falafel). Congratulations to Castor (Lake Harriet Upper) and Nou (Hmong Academy), who won the competition with their partner, Chef Ann from Pizzeria Lola & Hello Pizza!

Films from nine Southwest High School students were selected as part of the 2015 EDU Film Festival. Since 2007, the EDU Film Festival has served as Minnesota's premier film festival for high school students. Each year over 300 students from schools across the state view each other's work, take part in panel discussions and network with high school and professional filmmakers.

Approximately 250 MPS Graphic Design students earned a college credit from MCTC.

Seven students received KBEM Student Awards during a ceremony at Elsie's.

Local Awards

US News and World Report ranked Patrick Henry as the #3 high school in the state of Minnesota.

Jazinae Patterson, a junior at Washburn, named the Youth of the Year by the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities.

Nearly 50 students in grades 6-12 on May 2 participated in Minnesota History Day. Winners and runners up at the state level are eligible to attend the National History Day competition at the University of Maryland, College Park, in June.

Dijon McCain, student at Henry High School, and Elisabeth Geschiere, associate educator at Washburn High School, were among four winners of the 2015 Minneapolis PeaceMaker Awards. These students to encourage and support people who are working to prevent youth violence. Also among the 16 nominees were Corey Byrd of Edison High School, April Graves of Roosevelt High School, Semaj Moore of Henry High School and Deanna Standing Cloud of MPS Indian Education.

A group of Southwest seniors won 1st place at the State Destination Imagination (DI) tournament. In addition to winning in their division they also were given the DI DaVinci Award for "fusing classical thought and philosophy with art and science to propose new and creative outlooks on the world."

Edison students, Aaron Klaers and Kaiser Ritschel, took 1st place in their division during the Junior Achievement (JA) Titan Business Challenge State competition held at Best Buy World Headquarters.

Southwest team "No Spill Zone" recieved first place in Deloitte's Virtual Team Challenge for the state of Minnesota. The team went on to earn top honors in the national Virtual Team Challenge competition sponsored by the firm Deloitte.

Four Southwest students were named to the National Interscholastic Swim & Dive Coaches Association Academic All-American Team.

Karissa Kier- Ficken from South High School and Kayla Duane from Patrick Henry High School were accepted into College Horizons. The program supports the higher education of Native American students by providing college and graduate admissions workshops to American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students/participants from across the nation.

The Minneapolis Board of Education welcomed Noah Branch, a sophomore at Patrick Henry High School, to the school board as its first student representative.

11 Roosevelt High School students who completed a yearlong emergency medical responder course, which is the first round of emergency medical technician (EMT) training, as part of a new partnership between MPS and the Minneapolis Fire Department.

Randy Mathews, student at North High School, is one of this year's Beat the Odds scholarship winners.The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Beat the Odds awards program recognizes extraordinary young people who have overcome tremendous adversity in life to achieve academic excellence, demonstrate leadership in their communities and aspire to attend college.

Eight Edison students completed the International Baccalaureate Diploma exams in six subjects and individual extended essays.

Twenty Seven Southwest students completed the International Baccalaureate Diploma exams in six subjects and individual extended essays.

Eleven Edison students passed 3 credit Business classes offered in cooperation with MCTC.

Grants

Green Central was among 12 schools nationwide to receive a $10,000 Keys + Kids grant from the VH1 Save The Music Foundation in partnership with A Great Big World. Keys + Kids is a competitive grant program created in response to the lack of functional pianos in public schools.

Have something to add?

This website is regularly updated. Any omission is unintentional.

If you have any highlights from the 2014-15 school year you wish to share, please send them to answers@mpls.k12.mn.us and we will be sure to add them!